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Monthly Archives: February 2015

When our kids are little, what they should and shouldn’t do is obvious. Do eat vegetables, do not put a fork in an electrical socket, do practice piano, don’t punch your brother, the list goes on. But I’m learning the older they get the lines are becoming more blurred. My 8 year old wants to play goal tender. He has had a few opportunities to try it and says he loves it. He’s had a few good games and honestly did a great job. He blocked some great shots and did a nice job paying attention during the lulls. I can tell he really enjoys the glory that comes with it too. The end of the game where all the kids pile on and give him hugs and leading the pack down the “good game” handshake line.

However, I would rather he didn’t. Is it dangerous? Waiting for high speed pucks to fly at him from all angles – yes, probably a little. But considering the mountains of padding that make up goalie gear, it’s not exactly fork-in-socket dangerous. He is very sensitive and takes things personally. He puts a lot of pressure on himself and wants to do everything well. My fear is the focus on this key position could cause him emotional distress. What happens when the team isn’t winning and it’s up to him to make sure the other team doesn’t score? What if he’s off his game and there’s negative focus? How would he handle that? I also know that he won’t get as much exercise in the net as he would in a skating position. Goalie gear is also uber expensive but that is the least of my concerns.

It would be easy to discourage him from playing goalie or to make the parental decision and just say no. But some things need to be learned for yourself. It’s a hard lesson but one he needs to find out on his own. This is a tough exercise for a parent as well. How will I handle teenage years when he has friends I don’t like or wants to pursue a major I don’t approve of in college? What if he brings a girl home I find annoying and repulsive? He’s turning into his own person and I know I need to give him the opportunity to explore (and possibly fail) on his own. This week he has been talking to his friends about goalie in the locker room and is pretty stoked about the potential of playing as goalie. My husband and I will continue to have some real conversations with him but in my opinion he needs the room to be him.

Who knows, maybe if I give him this one he’ll only bring home smart, pretty, funny, appreciative girls who think I’m awesome. 🙂 Hey, a mom can hope right?

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We’ve all seen that driver on the interstate, weaving all over the place, always trying to get in a faster, better lane. This has pretty much been my approach to exercise from day one of my journey. I’ve changed my training plan several times to the point where I rarely actually finish a training program. There’s always something bigger, brighter, shinier around the corner. After numerous attempts to complete as seen on TV type workout plans and failing, I one day told myself it didn’t matter what I did as long as I did something for exercise every day. And the freedom in that variety is what got me going and hooked on fitness. I did the elliptical, I did YouTube videos, I walked my dog, I jumped rope, I swam with my kids, rode my bike, did yoga, took classes etc.

In almost everything else I crave routine. My mornings are coffee and talk radio in my car. Every week day. I buy the same running shoes when my old ones wear out. I have a 16 year supply of perfume (same one I’ve been wearing since I turned 15). Exercise for me has been the healthy dose of variety my life needs.

Through my trial and error process of fitness I’ve found that I truly enjoy running, paddle boarding, cycling and weight lifting. I love the strength and physique I get from lifting. There is no better feeling than the pride and glow of finishing a long distance run or race. And paddle boarding and cycling are just fun for fun’s sake. SUP and cycling for me don’t even feel like exercise. I would do them if there were zero physical benefits. (Lucky for me there are though!)

Yay! Exercise! Healthy and wellness! Where’s the problem? I’m starting to get more serious about my lifting and my running (26.2 on 10/4/15). After last week’s sickness and subsequent gym hiatus, I’ve been so happy to be back in the gym and making progress. I’m getting stronger on my lifts, and I’m really enjoying it. I’m also starting to look at marathon training programs since Spring will be here before we know it and I know I’ll need approximately 18 weeks of solid training. Unfortunately some of my running acquaintances have questioned my low mileage and have made mention that I will need to stop lifting once I start actual marathon training, else I risk losing endurance. There is the concern that the additional bulk of muscles could cause running slowness. On the other side, my lifting acquaintances have said that excess endurance running will ruin the coveted strength and muscle gains.

I don’t want to be spinning my wheels, putting in a lot of extra work just to have everything cancel itself out. So are these my choices? Option A.) Give up the heavy lifting, focus on a textbook marathon plan with some occasional body weight movements, or Option B.) Give up on the marathon and commit to a serious lifting routine with occasional high intensity interval sessions for cardio. I have never been a rebellious individual. I pride myself on doing most things by the book. But when faced with these two scenarios I say “nope”. Through the magic of Google I am finding there are is a super secret Option C.) – Hybrid training. This page actually explains it very well. I can have the best of both worlds without risking exhaustion or stalled progress! Hybrid training combines specific training runs with heavy lifting. What I love about this is that there is a way to do it and still have rest days and make improvements. I can have my cake and eat it too (and boy do I love cake!).

What does this hybrid training look like for me and my goals and fitness level specifically? I’m not exactly sure yet. More to come on that later. But again, that’s the magic of the internet. I know I’m not the first person to want the best of both worlds. I’m embracing my lane changing habits to find what will work for me. It may be a little risky, but that’s part of the fun. 🙂

Weekends full of errands, hockey, date nights, and homework are so much fun. But what’s more fun? Slow relaxing weekends full of nothing. They are like gold these days. I was sick all last week. Thought I was coming out of it on Wednesday only to find myself worse on Thursday. Decided not to work out on Thursday and instead spent the extra time finishing my homework for the week. For Friday’s exercise I just did weight lifting without pushing too hard. Focused on a balanced full body work out since I didn’t do much the rest of the week.

Saturday was Valentine’s day. It was also 0 degrees out with a wind chill of -25ish so all of the kids’ outdoor hockey practices and games for Saturday were cancelled. I didn’t clean or catch up on projects around the house, I didn’t have to work on homework, I didn’t work out (nope, not at all). I just enjoyed not being sick and not having an agenda. I usually love being busy and having a list of things to accomplish but yesterday we all literally just did nothing. We went to IHOP in the morning, we played video games (Sims

4 for me!), we had Jimmy John’s for dinner, we napped. It was amazing. Today I got in a short run (first one in about a week), did some laundry, turned in my homework, focused on drinking extra water. We went out for lunch, had some fun at the arcade, picked up some cupcakes. Later in the evening we all went to our 8 year old’s hockey game followed by dinner at Pizza Ranch.

So happy for the time at home with family. Sometimes it’s just nice to do nothing at all. I’m now feeling fully refreshed and ready to kick butt in the gym this week! 🙂

Yesterday I was sick as a dog. Picture death warmed over. I’ll spare you the details. Let’s just say I was super sick. Got some work done in the morning then spent the rest of the day trying to recuperate. Yesterday was also Hubby’s birthday – I felt terrible that we couldn’t have the celebration he deserves. (Sorry Honey, I will make it up to you!)

Despite still feeling nowhere near 100% today, after not working out at all yesterday I resolved to at least get myself back in gear today. Got my gym bag ready, packed a healthy lunch and a bunch of Dayquil gel tabs. As I’m at work on conference call #1, it starts sleeting. Yuck. As I’m on conference call #2 it starts snowing. By the time I’m off conference call #2 it’s snowing… snowing hard. Several projects and another conference call down and I realize it’s stopped snowing all together. Yes! Going to the gym on the lunch hour will be that much simpler. I’ll get to the gym, get in that workout I should have yesterday, get a quick shower, post workout smoothie and back to work – easy peasy. Popped another couple Dayquil, grabbed a few tissues and was out the door.

I would like to say I pranced to my car but it was more like a lumbering shuffle. Turned on the car and started dusting off the snow only to discover a layer of ice. A thick layer of ice (remember that sleet?). So I started scraping, and scraping and scraping. By the time I was done I was covered in sweat, dizzy and nauseous beyond belief. At this point I felt like clearing the car was the workout. But I wanted to get that workout darn it! I didn’t come out to the parking lot just to dig out my car and go back inside! I told myself I had to at least drive the short distance to the gym and scan my key tag to get my check-in for the day. If I felt up to it by the time I got there, I’d do the workout. If I was still feeling like crap I would reward my puny efforts with my smoothie anyway and go back to work.

So what happened? I finished the work out. I hit a PR on my bench press of 50 lbs! (Let’s not get too excited folks, the 2.5 lb plates were about the size of my hand – and I have small hands – but they were plates none the less.) After that I pretty much phoned in the rest of it because I wasn’t feeling great but a half assed workout is better than none at all. A little exercise did rejuvenate me and that post workout protein smoothie tasted all the better because of it.

Got to scrape the car again before heading back to work.

After work I had to scrape the car again. Oh joy.

Went to my 8 year old’s hockey game. They lost but he skated hard and played well.

Then I got to scrape the car again. Yippee.

Home now, and the car is in the garage. No more scraping for me today. I think I may have earned myself another smoothie. 🙂

Here we are at the end of week 4 of Simply Shredded. I won’t write out the entire workout but I am including a link to my training plan and updated training plan. As I got started with the Simply Shredded program I needed to change some things to continue to incorporate my running. So how did it really go? Did I stick to my exact diet the entire time? Did I really drink a gallon of water every single day? Did I run as much as I wanted to? The answer to all of those is no. No, no, no. Nope, not at all. I’m a human being after all, not a machine (contrary to popular belief, and not in a good way) but I did keep track of everything; good and bad. As it turns out, I’m a documenting freak so it was fun for me to keep track of all of these nuances. I also put a heck of a lot of work in this month. Hope you find it helpful. Otherwise, it’s just more documenting for me to keep to review later – win/win. 🙂

Starting picture on the left through to the end of week 4 pic on the right.

The Goal: Reduce fat/lose weight

Results – Pics & Stats
Yay! All this hard work seems to be paying off. I lost 4.5 inches and 4.5 lbs these last 4 weeks. Not too bad! I’ve included a chart with measurements taken after each week along with some pics. I did my measurements, weigh ins, and progress pics every Saturday morning before breakfast to stay consistent. (The “starting” picture is a bit dark as I had to take them earlier than usual that day.)

Workouts
I followed the Simply Shredded program for my strength training. I worked on increasing my weekly running mileage and made sure to include some HIIT to get my heart rate really going at least a couple times a week. I didn’t always do the ab exercises that Simply Shredded recommends on Fridays. No real excuse for that other than I work abs pretty regularly with my trainer and just didn’t feel like doing abs those days. 🙂 The calf exercises were also hit and miss. I go to multiple locations of my gym chain and some of the locations don’t have those machines. I also figured my running worked my calves pretty well. I would say I did those about 75% of the time or so. I did increase an inch in both calves which I was pretty excited about.

Nutrition
Followed IIFYM as best as I could (see other post on nutrition). I wanted to cut (lose weight/fat as apposed to gaining or maintaining) but decided to first start with maintenance calories since I wasn’t sure how my running would affect my goals. I calculated maintenance macros for the 4 days of lifting the Simply Shredded program calls for. I also added in additional calories in the form of carbs for my runs. For my runs I used this formula: (75 calories x miles ran)/4 = carbs in grams extra that day. I only ate these additional calories if I felt I needed them. I usually did use some or most of them on those run days but usually not all. I did not add any additional calories for my HIIT sessions. My hope was that this would contribute to my weight loss instead of maintenance. It seemed to work as I was seeing results each week. Had I not seen results I would have reduced my intake.

A bit about this chart: The red bolded days are those I did not stick to macros exactly with everything weighed out. On those days I got as close as I could, focusing on eating lean protein throughout the day but an event or special scenario came up that I wanted

Typical day of eating.

to enjoy without being the kill-joy with the food scale. I know I was close those days but not spot-on. I didn’t do any full “cheat” days, just a specific meal on those days highlighted in red. I thought it was important to note those though. If wasn’t seeing progress I could look back and evaluate those more closely.

Hydration
I made sure to drink about a gallon of water a day. There were probably some days I missed by a few ounces but am pretty happy to be close most of the time.

Overall Summary
I’ve really enjoyed the workouts in Simply Shredded. I love that they are so short I can fit them in over my lunch hour without issue. I can tell I’m getting stronger with each session. My struggle now has been coping without rest days. I have taken rest days here and there by doubling up on workouts the day before or after. It’s been okay but definitely more effort than my body is used to. I think it is getting easier though and I am pretty excited about my results! 🙂

I’m in! Today marathon registration opened at 10:00 am. By 10:30 I was registered with confirmation email and everything. It’s not until October but it feels very real now. This is going to happen. I’m going to run 26.2 miles. And I’m looking forward to it!

A few years ago my sister trained for and ran a marathon. I remember at the time thinking that training for and running a marathon just seemed like the scariest, most awful form of self torture I’d ever heard of. Who runs hours and hours a week for months to train and get prepare for a 3+ hour (if you’re fast) race? It’s not a run for survival. Nobody forces someone to run a marathon. So who does that?

Back when my sister was training if you asked me to jog for even 5 minutes I would have laughed in your face. Now a 5 minute jog is my warm up. Now I crave hitting the pavement. Now I am an athlete (granted, still a slow athlete) but I am going to run this marathon in October. What changed? All it takes is that spark. I’m inspired by my sister (yes you, Pan!), I’m in inspired by my BRF (you know who you are!), I’m inspired by my badass canyon-running idol (you know who you are too!).

Pace & finish time… blank stare, blinking cursor. Not only do I need to commit to running a marathon today. I have to commit to actually finishing it. Stuff just got real. I thought. I thought and thought and thought. I honestly thought the page might time out. Then I typed 11 minute miles with a projected finish time of 4 hours 45 minutes. I know that they won’t come out and drag me off the course if I don’t meet my time but somehow this felt like a pledge. A pledge to get it done in less than 5 hours. A pledge to give it my all. This is my first (and maybe only) marathon and I’m going into it with a goal to finish. Finishing in 4 hours 45 minutes is my target. 4 hours 30 minutes is my stretch goal. Right now 11 minute miles are my easy I-could-run-forever pace. I think it’s doable. I hope it’s doable. However, a wise woman once told me “hope is not a plan” (you know who you are too). So the plan is this: Show up and run. Show up and run my heart out.

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September 2012 I started my Ph.D., this was my Facebook status update “AH! Writing my first paper in 8 years. What did I get myself into??”. It’s been a long three years and there’s still a long road ahead but one year from now, if all goes as planned, I will be starting my dissertation research. February 1st, 2016.

So what exactly needs to happen between now and February 1st 2016? A lot. The most daunting of which is this: Comprehensive exams (comps) during marathon training. If I keep all my ducks in a row though, I should be starting to taper my training for the marathon when I start my comps. I had a momentary panic attack today when I realized how close I am to the end of this whole big Ph.D. thing. Yes, I still have 4 classes left…and then some big tests…and then the really big paper but other than that I’m almost done! Seriously though, I’m now legitimately more than half way there and that feels good. One year from now, I’ll be All But Dissertation (ABD) and done with college coursework. That’s a darn fine feeling if you ask me.